


Atlas, crumbling

by AkumaStrife



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Seven Deadly Sins, Strifehart Week 2019, just general angst idk what to tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 19:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20606225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkumaStrife/pseuds/AkumaStrife
Summary: Dedicating a life to a cause often times doesn't feel like a life at all. Merely a knight in the middle of a board, cutting a path for the queen and cleaning up the damage left behind, and that can be lonely indeed.





	Atlas, crumbling

Life was hard—it hadn’t always been, but it got hard early enough that really that was all Leon remembered. Life was hard, being orphaned was hard, being swept up from his home and his life and his entire _world_ was hard enough that he wasn’t sure he’d ever recover (not that he gave much thought to that.)

Everything was hard, felt like it always was and always would be, no matter how hard he tried, so why shouldn’t _this_ be too?

He didn’t even know what _this_ was. Just a brush of fingers, a glance, a silent tilt of Cloud’s head that beckoned Leon to follow. And he does. Wherever.

Anywhere.

Too desperate for… what? Company? A quiet presence who had even a sliver of an idea of what it was like to have everything be hard all the goddamn time? Someone to take the lead, so he could just _rest?_

Maybe that was greedy. Selfish, to try to make someone else shoulder his burdens. _Lazy_, when there was still so much to do to repair all the damage that had been done. (To Radiant Garden, but sometimes when he talked about it, Aerith looked at him like he should be focusing that effort inward instead. But the chasm of darkness that teamed under the bright light in his heart was too much to even think about wading through. He feared venturing too far in the shadows, without someone to pull him back out.)

But Leon… Leon’s so _tired. _

Maybe that was why it was so easy to fall into Cloud’s arms when his hand reach for him in dark doorways and practice arenas. Maybe it’s that his hands are as scarred as Leon’s. His hands are stronger—have to be, to carry that sword and those dark memories and at the very least hold Leon himself up—but sometimes they shake when they touch Leon. And if Leon looks in his eyes, they shine blue and bright and ashamed, mirroring Leon’s guilt right back.

But then, Cloud’s hands shook a lot. Tifa worried it was because Cloud was still sick, still touched and bruised by darkness. Maybe she was right.

They shake now, too. Cloud curls his fingers tight and fast against his palm. Tifa catches it first, but Leon isn’t far behind. It distracts him from Yuffie’s reports on the town’s defenses.

_What? _he wants to ask, but can’t, because Tifa beats him to it.

“Cloud?”

“Nothing,” Cloud says. It’s a lie, and a good one, but maybe he’s gotten worse at it over the year, because Leon tracks the way his jaw tightens at the corner as he steps back from the table.

“Where do you think you’re going.” Leon doesn’t mean for it to come out accusing, but that’s just life. Hard. Difficult. One step to the right of what it should be.

“Out.”

Leon doesn’t have any claim to Cloud’s time, but he says, “You promised,” anyway, because Cloud’s eyes are blue and cloudy and haunted, and his shoulders are tense with coiling energy. He looks like smoke on a battlefield, poised for running.

Cloud frowns, clarity snapping his eyes bright again and his mouth flat. But it makes Leon relax anyway, because this is a Cloud he understands, this is Cloud upset and short with him.

“I know,” he says, low and acerbic, meant to be barbed and Leon breathes easier with the familiarity of it. He still leaves, but at least now Leon’s certain Cloud’s coming back.

Eventually.

Tifa shoots Leon a pointed look, sharp as a punch, and Leon can’t meet it, not today.

“Good work, Yuffie,” Leon says, even if the praise is awkward in his mouth. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow. I have some work in the borough.”

“Do you need—”

“No.”

He gathers his few things and his gunblade and heads for the boroughs, but doesn’t make it that far. He keeps finding other work to accomplish on the way over, other people who need help and other damaged sites that need to be either roped off as too dangerous or marked to be cleaned up later when they have a full team. They’re all distractions, anyway, and he knows that. Things to keep himself from thinking about Cloud, or the soft ways the girls look at Cloud. The way they coddle and love him, despite his flaws and his darkness.

That’s what stings most, he thinks. No, not a sting. It’s nothing so small. Rather, it’s like a stab of something cold and poisonous, spreading its effects slow and sick over time. That they reach for him even after he bites and yet—

But that’s the darkness talking, that’s what the heartless want him to feel; sometimes when it’s bad he thinks he sees twitching shadows at the corners of the street, gone before he can catch them.

It’s a dangerous feeling, one he shouldn’t have let grown, even if it blossomed unbeknown to him when he was lowest and couldn’t guard against it. But it’s taken root and he does his best to rip out every poisonous weed as it sprouts. Surely, surely, he’s not the only hero of light who has to battle the darkness every day. He can’t be. Even if some days he hardly feels like a hero at all. Just a man, trying his damnedest to rebuild a world he let fall—

(_’you were a child!’ _

_‘So is Sora!’)_

_—_and earn back the light and love he’s supposed to be spreading.

It’s so hard, though, when he feels like he’s fighting a losing battle; when some days it’s not so different from a reoccurring nightmare where he’s standing, alone, in a canyon and surrounded by heartless. Just a writhing, endless wave of them. It feels like that now. No end in sight, only the endless gray expanse above him and darkness fanning out, out, out around him. His gunblade is heavy. Too heavy. He always drops it, fingers shaking. And in his own head there are never a pale pair of hands ready to grab them.

Leon comes to himself suddenly, dizzy, breathing too fast and unsure when he’d started. He’s in the crystal fissure, thankfully, so he allows himself to drop into a crouch and twist hands through his hair, holding on tight to ground himself as he gasps.

His panicked breathes echo too loud, but everything is echoed here in the crystal fissure, and maybe that’s why it brings him so much comfort. He doesn’t sound so alone, and here with the shining crystal faces that glow with their own mysterious light, his light is reflected back brighter than ever. It’s the last bit of hope in a destroyed world when he has nothing but the world itself.

It’s a harsh mirror he can’t face some days.

A third hand joins his, familiar but startling all the same, and tugs a little on his hair, and then one of his hands, pulling it away.

Cloud says nothing, but Leon can feel his displeasure anyway.

“What are you doing here?” he mutters.

“I thought you didn’t want me leaving.”

Leon scoffs; this isn’t what he meant—Cloud finding him mid panic attack—and they both know it. He collects himself quickly, scraping himself up from the floor where he’s spilled messy and toxic and vulnerable, and forces himself back into an approximation of his armored self. When he stands, he’s scowling, but Cloud doesn’t look any happier. That’s something at least.

They stand, two men fighting their own silent battles, and there’s an impulse somewhere to tell the other that they’re not fighting alone, but neither can voice it when it drips with hypocrisy.

Cloud never minds the quiet, he can weather uncomfortable silences better than anyone Leon’s ever known. But it only makes Leon itch for something he can’ quite name, so instead of scratching down to bone to find it, he pulls out his gunblade and swings.

Cloud blocks with a huff and a sharp _clang_, the strike of steel ringing enough to fill the cavern.

Somehow Leon breathes a little easier for this familiar dance. It can’t be anything else, the way they strike and dodge and parry. It’s well practiced, almost like the endless practice drills Cid used to run him through, except the dummy swings back and he could follow the pattern with his eyes closed.

It’s probably something like the meditation Aerith is always trying to sweet-talk him into, but this is better because it wears him down, it exhausts his muscles and wipes his mind clean and it’s something he shares with Cloud. They have such few things that can truly be called theirs.

He does close his eyes at some point, he’s not sure when, but suddenly Cloud breaks their routine, jostling his arm with an awkward block and numbness zings from Leon’s elbow to hand.

He drops his gunblade.

For a moment he’s knocked out of his body almost, the panic creeping back.

Cloud’s on him before he can open his eyes.

His back hits the wall, Cloud’s hands are pulling tight at his jacket, and he kisses with teeth like he’s trying to drag him back over some jagged cliff.

Leon exhales shuddering, all at once unable to remember when the last time he actually breathed was and how much easier it is with Cloud trading air with him, forcing him to inhale and exhale just as he forces a give and take in their kissing that leaves him weak in the knees. It’s just like a sparring session, except how it’s not nearly as practiced, and Leon always thinks, greedily, like he’s starving, how much more he’d like to perfect this part of their partnership.

A heated flush spreads under Leon’s skin, growing from a spark into something frantic. It’s like casting a spell, or drinking a potion. Because suddenly he’s _awake_ again, he’s _here_ and kissing back, his hands working finally to wrap around Cloud’s shoulders and pulling him in close. It becomes less like a battle, a spar, and something carnal and hungry and not unlike the brush of darkness itself. But not… not quite. He can never figure out what it is when they’re together like this, can’t think, can’t breathe unless Cloud is. It’s dark, but not like heartless, dark like embers. That’s as close as he can compare before Cloud is biting his lip and twisting a firm hand that still shakes around the back of his neck, and Leon’s hands are shaking too as they slide up into Cloud’s hair.

_Don_ _’t go, don’t go, please don’t leave me._

Cloud bites his lip hard enough to make Leon hiss. It tastes a little like blood and thin patience worn threadbare. He wants more. He kisses harder, faster, pulls Cloud in until they’re flush and feverish and melting together in the heat of it. Until Leon can’t tell where he ends and Cloud begins and that’s all he’s ever wanted. Still he wants more, more, more. As much as Cloud will give him, and then a little more. Leon doesn’t need to think about anything else when he has _this. _

Cloud breaks the kiss. Beyond the regret Leon realizes he wasn’t breathing. He gasps, rattled and settled in equal measure.

“I promised,” Cloud says. It takes a moment for it to ping in Leon’s memory as a repeat from earlier. “I promised I’d stay until Radiant Garden was restored. And I will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see you putting things off.”

Leon blinks. Surprised. He can say nothing to that because it’s not… untrue, but he hadn’t realized he’d been doing that until just now. Half-finished projects and slow progress explained away by technical difficulties and perfectionism.

“Whatever,” Leon whispers. He can’t meet Cloud’s eyes, and he tells himself it’s the proximity.

Cloud _tsk_’s. He leans in to steal another kiss that says more than words could.

“Not just about you,” Leon admits. His pride gnaws at him—snarls at him—his lion pendant _burns_ against his skin with the shame of it.

“Tell me, then.”

“Hypocrite.”

Cloud snorts and knocks his fist against Leon’s shoulder, hard without being an insult.

It helps, but Leon still chokes on the words. Radiant Garden is all he has left. How sad. How pathetic. It seems like everyone has moved on somehow, or has found something else—_someone else—_and still, like a child, he has nothing but this world, broken and desolate. When it’s finished, when he’s given everyone back their world again and Cloud leaves him, what will he have?

It’s a selfish and paltry thought to have. So, he generally tries not to have it. But Cloud is asking, and Cloud should know, but he’s never been quite sure how to say it.

_Selfish._

_Greedy. _

He shakes his head against the whispers. Cloud’s fair brows are furrowing, Leon can feel it.

He’s taking too long, but Cloud could always out-wait him. Finally, he says, “Ever feel like it’s just easier to get…”

“Angry?” Cloud finishes.

Leon nods, eyes cast elsewhere even though he’s seeing nothing but the general atmosphere. Sees the unfocused outline of Cloud in all black and still pressing close, blocking off his escape routes. If he even wanted them—he’s not the one between them who bolts like a rabbit. “Yes,” he answers, quiet enough it’s barely more than a sigh. The cavern seems to echo it back to him. “There’s something to be done with anger, not… anything else.”

“The darkness whispers to me, too,” Cloud says. So, so quiet, so pained Leon nearly doesn’t understand him. It costs him to admit it, but he’s offering it anyway. “Louder than yours, I bet. Why do you think I spend so much time away?”

Leon snorts. Jerks his head in a clumsy gesture of affection, knocking his chin into Cloud’s cheek. “Because you can’t stand us. Because you’ve got so much history on your shoulders you can’t handle any glimmer of a future.” He can’t help sounding bitter. It’s his own insecurities, but they bubble up like stomach acid, bottled in for so long it’s like it’s been shaken to vitriolic, his tongue turning as sharp as a blade. “Because you don’t… I don’t _know,_ Cloud. I really don’t. Some days we’re like… like _this, _and the next you can’t seem to stand to look at me. Forgive me for getting ideas. This is one of the only—the only _good_ things I have left, and I can’t even have that.”

Surprisingly, Cloud only barks a laugh and bumps their foreheads together. Harder than Leon would like, but maybe as hard as he needs to be knocked out of his own spiraling.

“Ow.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

Leon glares at him, pulling his face back away from Cloud just enough to do it properly. No farther. Because he doesn’t want to and Cloud has a hand so tightly around his arm that he thinks Cloud’s trying to keep them both from running off.

Cloud sweeps his thumb over Leon’s arm, stuttering and awkward, but his chin set mulish as he does it anyway. “I leave when the whispers aren’t whispers anymore. Merlin always says that darkness is attracted to the brighter lights. And the darkness is always louder around you. Sometimes it’s deafening.”

Leon blinks.

He looks away.

“Sounds exhausting,” he mumbles.

“So does carrying an entire town,” Cloud says back.

They’re circling around too many things and too many confessions unsaid and too many feelings thrown messy onto the floor between them with no explanation. But then, these things are never easy, and nothing worth having is.

Leon flicks an uncertain look back to him. “It… is,” and his voice _cracks. _


End file.
